Greek tradition
Illness in Greek dream interpretation
Greek practice had two uses for a dream in illness, and neither of them was symbolic.
What this page is
What follows describes what the Greek material says about particular images, where it says it, and what the method around it required. It is not a claim that a dream about any of these things means anything, and Artemidorus's own framework holds that most dreams mean nothing at all.
The first was incubation. The sick travelled to a sanctuary of Asclepius, of which Epidaurus was the most famous, purified themselves and slept in the abaton in the expectation that the god would appear. Around seventy cures are recorded on stone there, carved in the fourth century BCE, and they follow a pattern: the patient arrives with a complaint, sleeps, dreams of the god performing an operation or giving an instruction, and wakes healed or with a course of treatment to follow.
The second was diagnostic and belongs to the Hippocratic writers rather than the temples. The fourth book of On Regimen separates dreams sent by gods, which it leaves alone, from dreams produced by the soul, which are the physician's business. Its reasoning is that while the body rests the soul stays awake and attends to it, so what it makes images of is the body's own condition. A dream was therefore evidence about the patient, and the treatment it prompted was a change of diet and exercise rather than an interpretation.
The two coexisted, and Greek medicine did not treat them as rivals in the way a modern reader expects. What neither of them did was look up a symbol.
Worth knowing
The Epidaurus inscriptions are the sanctuary advertising its own successes, and record no failures. They are excellent evidence for what people did and believed, and no evidence at all that it worked. Nothing here is medical guidance: a dream is not a diagnosis, and illness is a matter for a doctor.
What is actually recorded about dreaming of illness
Dreams do not detect illness. That is the most important sentence here, and it needs saying because the opposite claim is common, is frightening, and has no evidence behind it.
The illness entrySources and reviewed references
3 references. What these labels mean
- 1.The Epidaurus iamata, the healing inscriptionsHistorical dream record
Anonymous, inscribed at the Asclepieion of Epidaurus (-350)
Cited for: Around seventy recorded cures at the sanctuary of Asclepius, carved on stone in the fourth century BCE. Evidence for incubation as an organised practice: what patients did, what they reported dreaming, and what the sanctuary claimed followed. ⚠ These are the sanctuary's own advertisements for itself and are read as such.
- 2.On Regimen, Book IV (On Dreams)Historical dream record
The Hippocratic corpus (-400)
Cited for: The oldest surviving medical use of dreams: dreams read as diagnostic signs of the body's condition rather than as messages, separating dreams produced by the soul, which the physician treats by adjusting diet and exercise, from dreams attributed to gods, which it leaves alone.
- 3.Dreams and Experience in Classical AntiquityAcademic book
William V. Harris (2009) · Harvard University Press
Cited for: How dreams were recorded, classified and used in Greek and Roman practice, including temple incubation and the interpretive traditions around it.